Contents

The ecoregion is centered on the Yablonoi Mountains, a range that reaches heights of 1,600 m (5,200 ft), and runs southwest to northeast, parallel to Lake Baikal. The western edge of the region is the eastern shore of Lake Baikal and the Barguzin mountain range. The city of Chita is at the northeast of the region, and the city of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, is just outside the southern point of the region. To the south are the Khentii Mountains in Mongolia. To the east are the temperate grasslands of the Daurian steppe ecorgion. To the north is the Vitim tableland.[4][5]

The parallel ridges of the mountains in the region form the continental divide between rivers flowing to the Arctic Ocean (by way of Lake Baikal and the Lena River), and the Pacific Ocean (by way of the Amur River).

The climate of the ecoregion is Subarctic climate, dry winters ((Dwc)). This climate is characterized by long, very cold winters, and cool summers. but with little snow in winters. The Siberian High (also called the Siberian Anticyclone) keeps the area particularly dry in the winters. During the summer, the Inner Asiatic Depression brings hot air from the deserts of China and Mongolia, raising the temperature in the Transaikal.[5] To the north of the region, the climate grades into Humid continental climate, cool summer (Dfc), with cooler summers. To the south of the ecoregion in Mongolia, the climate is grades into Cold semi-arid climate (Koppen BSk), with less precipitation than the Transbaikal. Precipitation in the Transbaikal ranges from 400–500 mm/year in the uplands, to 200 mm/year in the lower and more southerly areas.[5]

The region is mostly forested below the 1,400 meter level. The characteristic trees on the warmer, wetter west side of the Yablonovsky Ridge are Dahurian larch (Larix gemilii)) and Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica). On the warmer and drier east of the ridge the larch is mixed with Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris).[5] The trees are draped with moss and lichen.

The flora of the Transbaikal exhibits altitude zoning. At the lowest levels in the river valleys and lowlands (0–600 meters), the characteristic vegetation is that of the steppes: bunchgrass (Stipa capillata), fescue, junegrass (Koeleria gracilis), and Filifolium (Tanacetum sibiricum). The next level (600-1,100 meters) is a forest-steppe level, and from 1,100–1800 meters a forest level featuring Larix gemilii and Pinus sylvestris. Above 1,800 meters is shrub land of Siberian dwarf pine (Pinus pumila, dwarf birch (Betula exilis), and Juniperus pseudosibirica. Unlike the Sayan and Altai mountains to the west, the climate of the Transbaikal is too extreme to support alpine meadows; the vegetation proceeds from forest directly to higher-altitude shrubs.[5]

The Transbaikal terrestrial ecoregion covers the "Lake Baikal" Freshwater Ecoregion (WWF ID:606). This freshwater ecoregion supports a "large lakes" habitat for aquatic life, the primary focus of scientific study being on Lake Baikal itself and fish that spawn in the rivers that feed into it (such as the Barguzin River in the Transbaikal).[8]

Forest fires are always a threat to wooded, dry areas; drought in recent years has increased the threat of wildfire. The area also suffers from pest outbreaks and uncontrolled logging. There is also gold mining in the area, and is a threat to the streams and bogs.[9]

1.
Taiga
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Taiga also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces and larches. The taiga is the worlds largest biome apart from the oceans, in North America it covers most of inland Canada and Alaska as well as parts of the extreme northern continental United States, where it is known as the Northwoods or North woods. However, the tree species, the length of the growing season. Hoffman discusses the origin of this use in North America. Although at high elevations taiga grades into alpine tundra through Krummholz, it is not an alpine biome only like subalpine forest, Taiga is the worlds largest land biome, and makes up 29% of the worlds forest cover, the largest areas are located in Russia and Canada. The taiga is the terrestrial biome with the lowest annual average temperatures after the tundra, extreme winter minimums in the northern taiga are typically lower than those of the tundra. The lowest reliably recorded temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere were recorded in the taiga of northeastern Russia, the taiga or boreal forest has a subarctic climate with very large temperature range between seasons, but the long and cold winter is the dominant feature. This climate is classified as Dfc, Dwc, Dsc, Dfd and Dwd in the Köppen climate classification scheme, meaning that the summer lasts 1–3 months. In Siberian taiga the average temperature of the coldest month is between −6 °C and −50 °C, the mean annual temperature generally varies from -5 °C to 5 °C, but there are taiga areas in eastern Siberia and interior Alaska-Yukon where the mean annual reaches down to -10 °C. According to some sources, the boreal forest grades into a mixed forest when mean annual temperature reaches about 3 °C. The winters, with temperatures below freezing, last five to seven months. Temperatures vary from −54 °C to 30 °C throughout the whole year, the summers, while short, are generally warm and humid. In much of the taiga, -20 °C would be a winter day temperature and 18 °C an average summer day. In Canada, Scandinavia and Finland, the season is often estimated by using the period of the year when the 24-hour average temperature is +5 °C or more. For the Taiga Plains in Canada, growing season varies from 80 to 150 days, some sources claim 130 days growing season as typical for the taiga. Other sources mention that 50–100 frost-free days are characteristic, data for locations in southwest Yukon gives 80–120 frost-free days. The closed canopy boreal forest in Kenozersky National Park near Plesetsk, Arkhangelsk Province, Russia, the longest growing season is found in the smaller areas with oceanic influences, in coastal areas of Scandinavia and Finland, the growing season of the closed boreal forest can be 145–180 days. High latitudes mean that the sun not rise far above the horizon

2.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians

3.
Mongolia
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Mongolia /mɒŋˈɡoʊliə/ is a landlocked unitary sovereign state in East Asia. Its area is equivalent with the historical territory of Outer Mongolia. It is sandwiched between China to the south and Russia to the north, while it does not share a border with Kazakhstan, Mongolia is separated from it by only 36.76 kilometers. At 1,564,116 square kilometers, Mongolia is the 18th largest and it is also the worlds second-largest landlocked country behind Kazakhstan and the largest landlocked country that does not border a closed sea. The country contains very little land, as much of its area is covered by grassy steppe, with mountains to the north and west. Ulaanbaatar, the capital and largest city, is home to about 45% of the countrys population, approximately 30% of the population is nomadic or semi-nomadic, horse culture is still integral. The majority of its population are Buddhists, the non-religious population is the second largest group. Islam is the dominant religion among ethnic Kazakhs, the majority of the states citizens are of Mongol ethnicity, although Kazakhs, Tuvans, and other minorities also live in the country, especially in the west. Mongolia joined the World Trade Organization in 1997 and seeks to expand its participation in regional economic, the area of what is now Mongolia has been ruled by various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Rouran, the Turkic Khaganate, and others. In 1206, Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history. His grandson Kublai Khan conquered China to establish the Yuan dynasty, after the collapse of the Yuan, the Mongols retreated to Mongolia and resumed their earlier pattern of factional conflict, except during the era of Dayan Khan and Tumen Zasagt Khan. In the 16th century, Tibetan Buddhism began to spread in Mongolia, being led by the Manchu-founded Qing dynasty. By the early 1900s, almost one-third of the male population were Buddhist monks. After the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, Mongolia declared independence from the Qing dynasty, shortly thereafter, the country came under the control of the Soviet Union, which had aided its independence from China. In 1924, the Mongolian Peoples Republic was declared as a Soviet satellite state, after the anti-Communist revolutions of 1989, Mongolia conducted its own peaceful democratic revolution in early 1990. This led to a multi-party system, a new constitution of 1992, homo erectus inhabited Mongolia from 850,000 years ago. Modern humans reached Mongolia approximately 40,000 years ago during the Upper Paleolithic, the Khoit Tsenkher Cave in Khovd Province shows lively pink, brown, and red ochre paintings of mammoths, lynx, bactrian camels, and ostriches, earning it the nickname the Lascaux of Mongolia. The venus figurines of Malta testify to the level of Upper Paleolithic art in northern Mongolia, the wheeled vehicles found in the burials of the Afanasevans have been dated to before 2200 BC

4.
Ecoregion
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An ecoregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than an ecozone. All three of these are less or greater than an ecosystem. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, the biodiversity of flora, fauna and ecosystems that characterise an ecoregion tends to be distinct from that of other ecoregions. Three caveats are appropriate for all bio-geographic mapping approaches, firstly, no single bio-geographic framework is optimal for all taxa. Ecoregions reflect the best compromise for as many taxa as possible, secondly, ecoregion boundaries rarely form abrupt edges, rather, ecotones and mosaic habitats bound them. Thirdly, most ecoregions contain habitats that differ from their assigned biome, biogeographic provinces may originate due to various barriers. Some physical, some climatic and some ocean chemical related, the history of the term is somewhat vague as it was used in many contexts, forest classifications, biome classifications, biogeographic classifications, etc. The concept of ecoregion of Bailey gives more importance to ecological criteria, while the WWF concept gives more importance to biogeography, there is significant, but not absolute, spatial correlation among these characteristics, making the delineation of ecoregions an imperfect science. Such transition zones are called ecotones, Ecoregions can be categorized using an algorithmic approach or a holistic, “weight-of-evidence” approach where the importance of various factors may vary. An example of the approach is Robert Bailey’s work for the U. S. The intended purpose of ecoregion delineation may affect the method used, according to WWF, the boundaries of an ecoregion approximate the original extent of the natural communities prior to any major recent disruptions or changes. WWF has identified 867 terrestrial ecoregions, and approximately 450 freshwater ecoregions across the Earth, the use of the term ecoregion is an outgrowth of a surge of interest in ecosystems and their functioning. In particular, there is awareness of issues relating to spatial scale in the study and it is widely recognized that interlinked ecosystems combine to form a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. The Global 200 is the list of ecoregions identified by WWF as priorities for conservation, Terrestrial ecoregions are land ecoregions, as distinct from freshwater and marine ecoregions. In this context, terrestrial is used to mean of land, WWF ecologists currently divide the land surface of the Earth into 8 major ecozones containing 867 smaller terrestrial ecoregions. The WWF effort is a synthesis of previous efforts to define. Many consider this classification to be decisive, and some propose these as stable borders for bioregional democracy initiatives. The eight terrestrial ecozones follow the major floral and faunal boundaries, identified by botanists and zoologists, ecozone boundaries generally follow continental boundaries, or major barriers to plant and animal distribution, like the Himalayas and the Sahara

5.
Lake Baikal
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Lake Baikal is a rift lake in Russia, located in southern Siberia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryat Republic to the southeast. Lake Baikal is the largest freshwater lake by volume in the world, with 23,615.39 km3 of fresh water, it contains more water than the North American Great Lakes combined. With a maximum depth of 1,642 m, Baikal is the worlds deepest lake and it is considered among the worlds clearest lakes and is considered the worlds oldest lake — at 25 million years. It is the seventh-largest lake in the world by surface area, like Lake Tanganyika, Lake Baikal was formed as an ancient rift valley, having the typical long crescent shape with a surface area of 31,722 km2. Baikal is home to thousands of species of plants and animals, the lake was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. The region to the east of Lake Baikal is referred to as Transbaikalia, Lake Baikal is in a rift valley, created by the Baikal Rift Zone, where the Earths crust is slowly pulling apart. At 636 km long and 79 km wide, Lake Baikal has the largest surface area of any lake in Asia, at 31,722 km2. The bottom of the lake is 1,186.5 m below sea level, but below this lies some 7 km of sediment, placing the rift floor some 8–11 km below the surface, the deepest continental rift on Earth. In geological terms, the rift is young and active—it widens about 2 cm per year, the fault zone is also seismically active, hot springs occur in the area and notable earthquakes happen every few years. The lake is divided into three basins, North, Central, and South, with depths about 900 m,1,600 m, fault-controlled accommodation zones rising to depths about 300 m separate the basins. The North and Central basins are separated by Academician Ridge, while the area around the Selenga Delta, the lake drains into the Angara tributary of the Yenisei. Notable landforms include Cape Ryty on Baikals northwest coast, Baikals age is estimated at 25 million years, making it the most ancient lake in geological history. It is unique among large, high-latitude lakes, as its sediments have not been scoured by overriding continental ice sheets. Russian, U. S. and Japanese cooperative studies of deep-drilling core sediments in the 1990s provide a record of climatic variation over the past 6.7 million years. Longer and deeper sediment cores are expected in the near future, Lake Baikal is the only confined freshwater lake in which direct and indirect evidence of gas hydrates exists. The lake is surrounded by mountains. The Baikal Mountains on the shore and the taiga are technically protected as a national park. It contains 27 islands, the largest, Olkhon, is 72 km long and is the third-largest lake-bound island in the world, the lake is fed by as many as 330 inflowing rivers

6.
Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai
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Chita is a city and the administrative center of Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia, located at the confluence of the Chita and Ingoda Rivers and on the Trans-Siberian Railway,900 kilometers east of Irkutsk. For several centuries before the Russians arrived, local Mongolic and Turkic tribes inhabited the Chita region, pyotr Beketovs Cossacks founded Chita in 1653. After 1825, several of the Decembrists suffered exile to Chita, thus, many of the Decembrists were intellectuals and members of the middle class, and consequently their arrival had a positive effect. According to George Kennan, Among the exiles in Chita were some of the brightest, most cultivated, Chita was granted town status on July 11,1851. When Richard Maack visited the city in 1855, he saw a wooden town, with one, also wooden, church. He estimated Chitas population at under 1,000, but predicted that the city would soon experience fast growth, by 1885, Chitas population had reached 5,728, and by 1897 it increased to 11,500. At the end of the 19th century, many Muslims settled in Chita and these Muslims were mainly of Tatar origin. They settled down near the Jewish quarter and built a mosque, many Tatars living in Chita descend from these immigrants. Chita was occupied by the Japanese between 1918 and 1920, from 1920 to 1922, Chita served as the capital of the Far Eastern Republic. From the 1930s to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Chita was a closed city, during this period, foreigners were prohibited from traveling to Chita, as were many Russians. In 1945, Puyi, the last Emperor of China, and some of his associates were held prisoner in the city, as a municipal division, the city of Chita together with one rural locality in Chitinsky District is incorporated as Chita Urban Okrug. The city is subdivided into four districts, Chernovsky, Ingodinsky, Tsentralny. Chernovsky Administrative District used to be a settlement, which was incorporated into Chita in 1941. Chernovskiye mines themselves are a nature monument of international status. The Trans-Siberian Highway passes through Chita, two sections of the highway connect in Chita, the M55 Baikal Highway, which goes from Chita to Irkutsk, and the M58 Amur Highway, which goes from Chita to Khabarovsk. Chita is served by Kadala Airport, situated 15km to the west, FC Chita is Chitas association football club. An indoor arena for speed skating is planned, Chita experiences a borderline subarctic climate/humid continental climate with very cold, very dry winters and warm, wet summers. «Реестр административно-территориальных единиц и населённых пунктов Забайкальского края», в ред, Распоряжения №209-р от10 июня2014 г

7.
Ulaanbaatar
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Ulaanbaatar, formerly anglicised as Ulan Bator /ˌuːlɑːn ˈbɑːtər/ is Mongolias capital and largest city. A municipality, the city is not part of any aimag, located in north central Mongolia, the municipality lies at an elevation of about 1,310 meters in a valley on the Tuul River. It is the cultural, industrial and financial heart, the centre of Mongolias road network. The city was founded in 1639 as a nomadic Buddhist monastic center, in 1778, it settled permanently at its present location, the junction of the Tuul and Selbe rivers. Before that, it changed location twenty-eight times, with each location being chosen ceremonially, in the twentieth century, Ulaanbaatar grew into a major manufacturing center. Ulaanbaatar has been given names in its history. Before 1911, the name was Ikh Khüree or Daa Khüree. The Chinese equivalent, Dà kùlún, was rendered into Western languages as Kulun or Kuren, upon independence in 1911, with both the secular government and the Bogd Khans palace present, the citys name changed to Niĭslel Khüree. It is called Bogdiin Khuree in the folk song Praise of Bogdiin Khuree, in western languages, the city at that time was most often referred to as Urga. When the city became the capital of the new Mongolian Peoples Republic in 1924, on the session of the 1st Great Peoples Khuraldaan of Mongolia in 1924, a majority of delegates expressed their wish to change the capital citys name to Baatar Khot. However, under the pressure of the Soviet activist of Communist International, Turar Ryskulov, in Europe and North America, Ulaanbaatar continued to be generally known as Urga or Khure until 1924, and Ulan Bator afterwards. The Russian spelling is the Russian phonetic equivalent of the Mongolian name and this form was defined two decades before the Mongolian name got its current Cyrillic script spelling and Ulaanbaatar transliteration. These Upper Paleolithic people hunted mammoth and wooly rhinoceros, the bones of which are found abundantly around Ulaanbaatar, a number of Xiongnu era royal tombs have been discovered around Ulaanbaatar, including the tombs of Belkh Gorge near Dambadarjaalin monastery and tombs of Songinokhairkhan. Located on the banks of the Tuul River, Ulaanbaatar has been well within the sphere of Turco-Mongol nomadic empires throughout history, the palace is said to be where Genghis Khan stayed with Yesui Khatun before attacking the Tangut in 1226. In 1651 Zanabazar returned to Mongolia from Tibet and founded seven aimags in Urga, as a mobile monastery-town, it was often moved to various places along the Selenge, Orkhon and Tuul rivers, as supply and other needs would demand. During the Dzungar wars of the late 17th century, it was moved to Inner Mongolia. As the city grew, it moved less and less and they have several thousand tents about them, which are removed from time to time. The Urga is much frequented by merchants from China and Russia, by Zanabazars death in 1723, Urga was the Mongolias preeminent monastery in terms of religious authority

8.
Lena River
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The Lena is the easternmost of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean. It is the 11th longest river in the world and has the 9th largest watershed and it is also the 3rd largest river in Asia. It is the largest among the rivers watershed is entirely within the Russian territorial boundaries. From Yakutsk it enters the lowlands and flows north until joined by its tributary the Aldan River and its most important left-hand tributary. In the upper section west and northwest of Lake Baikal the river flows mostly north and it turns west and then south losing another 600 meters in 128 km, to Chanchur, where there is a ranger station. 4222, Kachug, start of navigation, road to Irkutsk,4197, Verkholensk, mouth of the Kulenga River, northwest through mountains, Tutura River. 4108, Zhigalovo, start of service, including hydrofoil to Ust-Kut. In the central section the river flows mostly northeast,3705, Ust-Kut, northwest of the northern tip of Lake Baikal. In Cossack times, this was the site of a portage between the Yenesei and Lena, today it is the point where the Baikal-Amur Mainline railway crosses the Lena on a bridge and it handles 80% of cargo in the Sakha Republic region. 3397, Kirensk, port and former Cossack portage,3101, The devils path, a section treacherous in flood. 3096, Shcheki, a section with cliffs and twists. 2955, Vitim, and Vitim River from the south and we are now northeast of Lake Baikal. Many dead trees in the water,2931, Peledui, Peledui River, ship repair company and salt mines. 2744, Lensk, the most important port between Kirensk and Yakutsk, road 230 km north to the Mir Mine. Here was a point of the Perlinsky Trakht, a former courier route. Lena turns southeast and then northeast,2587, Chepaevo,2547, Macha,2937, Olyokminsk, Olyokma River from the south. River widens to 2 km and has extensive flood plains,2213, Uritskoe, 2030-1850, Lena Pillars, cliffs along the right bank. 1820, Mokhsogollokh, ferry and paved road to Yakutsk on the opposite bank,1805, Pokrovsk, downstream, Tabaga Cliffs, narrows, power line and planned site of bridge for the Amur Yakutsk Mainline railroad

9.
Amur River
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The Amur River or Heilong Jiang is the worlds tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeastern China. The largest fish species in the Amur is the kaluga, attaining a length as great as 5.6 metres, historically, it was common to refer to a river simply as water. The word for water is similar in a number of Asiatic languages, mul in Korean, muren in Mongolian, the name Amur may have evolved from a root word for water, coupled with a size modifier for Big Water. The Chinese name for the river, Heilong Jiang, means Black Dragon River in Chinese, and its Mongolian name, Khar mörön, means Black River. The river rises in the hills in the part of Northeast China at the confluence of its two major affluents, the Shilka River and the Ergune River, at an elevation of 303 metres. It flows east forming the border between China and Russia, and slowly makes an arc to the southeast for about 400 kilometres, receiving many tributaries. At Huma, it is joined by a tributary, the Huma River. Afterwards it continues to south until between the cities of Blagoveschensk and Heihe, it widens significantly as it is joined by the Zeya River. At the confluence with the Songhua the river turns northeast, now flowing towards Khabarovsk, now the river spreads out dramatically into a braided character, flowing north-northeast through a wide valley in eastern Russia, passing Amursk and Komsomolsk-on-Amur. The valley narrows after about 200 kilometres and the river flows north onto plains at the confluence with the Amgun River. Shortly after, the Amur turns sharply east and into an estuary at Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, in many historical references these two geopolitical entities are known as Outer Manchuria and Inner Manchuria, respectively. The Chinese province of Heilongjiang on the bank of the river is named after it. The name Black River was used by the Manchu and the Ta-tsing Empire who regarded this river as sacred, the Amur River is an important symbol of, and geopolitical factor in, Chinese–Russian relations. The Amur was especially important in the following the Sino–Soviet political split in the 1960s. For many centuries the Amur Valley was populated by the Tungusic and Mongol people, for many of them, fishing in the Amur and its tributaries was the main source of their livelihood. Until the 17th century, these people were not known to the Europeans, and little known to the Han Chinese, the term Yupi Dazi was used for the Nanais and related groups as well, owing to their traditional clothes made of fish skins. This Ming Dynasty Aigun was located on the bank to the later Aigun that was relocated during the Qing Dynasty. In any event, the Ming presence on the Amur was as short-lived as it was tenuous, soon after the end of the Yongle era, Russian Cossack expeditions led by Vassili Poyarkov and Yerofey Khabarov explored the Amur and its tributaries in 1643–44 and 1649–51, respectively

10.
Scots pine
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In the north of its range, it occurs from sea level to 1,000 m, while in the south of its range it is a high altitude mountain tree, growing at 1, 200–2,600 m altitude. It is readily identified by its combination of short, blue-green leaves. The species is found on poorer, sandy soils, rocky outcrops. On fertile sites, Scots pine is out-competed by other, usually spruce or broad-leaved tree species and it is the national tree of Scotland. The bark is thick, scaly dark grey-brown on the lower trunk, the habit of the mature tree is distinctive due to its long, bare and straight trunk topped by a rounded or flat-topped mass of foliage. The lifespan is normally 150–300 years, with the oldest recorded specimens in Lapland, the shoots are light brown, with a spirally arranged scale-like pattern. On vigorous young trees the leaves can be twice as long, leaf persistence varies from two to four years in warmer climates, and up to nine years in subarctic regions. Seedlings up to one year old bear juvenile leaves, these are single, 2–3 cm long, flattened, the cone scales have a flat to pyramidal apophysis, with a small prickle on the umbo. The seeds are blackish, 3–5 mm in length with a pale brown 12–20 mm wing and are released when the open in spring 22–24 months after pollination. The pollen cones are yellow, occasionally pink, 8–12 mm long, over 100 Pinus sylvestris varieties have been described in the botanical literature, but only three or four are now accepted. They differ only minimally in morphology, but with more pronounced differences in genetic analysis, populations in westernmost Scotland are genetically distinct from those in the rest of Scotland and northern Europe, but not sufficiently to have been distinguished as a separate botanical variety. Trees in the far north of the range were formerly treated as var. lapponica. The bulk of the range, from Scotland and Spain to central Siberia, the Balkans, northern Turkey, Crimea, and the Caucasus. Foliage more consistently glaucous all year, not becoming duller in winter, mongolia and adjoining parts of southern Siberia and northwestern China. Foliage duller green, shoots grey-green, leaves occasionally up to 12 cm long, the Sierra Nevada in southern Spain and possibly other Spanish populations Kalenicz. Cones often with scales, but doubtfully distinguishable on morphology. From border regions between Russia and Ukraine, in central and southern Europe, it occurs with numerous additional species, including European black pine, mountain pine, Macedonian pine, and Swiss pine. In the eastern part of its range, it occurs with Siberian pine, the tree spread across the British Isles after the Last Glacial Maximum

The taiga in the river valley near Verkhoyansk, Russia, at 67°N, experiences the coldest winter temperatures in the northern hemisphere, but the extreme continentality of the climate gives an average daily high of 22 °C (72 °F) in July.